System Requirements

Before installing CP-Sync, please ensure your environment meets the following requirements.

WordPress Requirements

• WordPress version 6.0 or higher
• A WordPress theme that follows standard coding practices

Server Requirements

• PHP 7.4 or higher
• MySQL 5.6 or higher (or MariaDB equivalent)
• A database using the utf8mb4 character set (see below)
• HTTPS support for secure API communication
• PHP cURL extension
• PHP JSON extension
• PHP XML extension (for CCB integration)

Database Character Set

Your database should use the utf8mb4 character set. This is the WordPress default, so most sites already meet this requirement — but older sites that have been migrated between hosts are sometimes still on latin1 or utf8, and the setting travels with the database when it moves.

Church management systems routinely contain characters these older character sets cannot represent: bullets (•), curly quotes (’), and emoji are all common in group and event titles. When the database cannot store a character, MySQL replaces it with ?, so content imports with substitutions like Summer Series ? Week 1.

To check your character set, look in Log File Content on the Log tab after a sync. CP Sync records it there only while Enable Debug Mode is set to Enable. Don’t rely on Database charset under Tools → Site Health → Info → Database: it shows the connection setting, not the character set of your tables, so it can read utf8mb4 on a site whose tables are still latin1.

Queue column wp_options.option_value charset: utf8mb4

If this reports anything other than utf8mb4, ask your host to convert the database. WordPress will not convert latin1 tables automatically, so a database in this state stays that way through upgrades and migrations until it is converted manually.

Church Management System Requirements

Planning Center Online (PCO)

• An active Planning Center Online account
• API access enabled for your account
• Permissions to access PCO Groups and/or Calendar modules

Church Community Builder (CCB)

• An active CCB account with API access
• API credentials (Username and Password)
• Appropriate permission levels to access group and/or event data

Browser Requirements

For the admin interface:

• Chrome (latest 2 versions)
• Firefox (latest 2 versions)
• Safari (latest 2 versions)
• Edge (latest 2 versions)

Additional Requirements

• Stable internet connection for API communication
• WordPress permalinks enabled and configured
• Sufficient PHP memory limit (64MB or higher recommended)
• PHP max_execution_time of 60 seconds or higher for large data imports

Integration-Specific Requirements

If you plan to use specific integrations:

CP Groups Integration

• CP Groups plugin installed and activated (version 1.0.0 or higher)

The Events Calendar Integration

• The Events Calendar plugin (by Modern Tribe) installed and activated (version 5.0 or higher)

Checking Your Configuration

You can verify your PHP configuration by navigating to Tools → Site Health in your WordPress admin dashboard to ensure all requirements are met.